Free Foolish Games by Leah Spiegel Page B

hard for you?” Nodding sarcastically, I humored her.
    “Yes,” she whimpered.
    “I thought that you liked him?” Riley asked.
    “I do, I like that he’s hot, rich, and famous. I like that the only thing that I would have to worry about is popping out babies for the rest of my life.”
    “Oh, to dream,” I said. “So it’s been hard for you?”
    “Yes,” she sulked.
    “So what are you going to do? Go back to Ryan?” I was hopeful. 
    “I could always move on to Hawkins.” She shrugged. “He seems okay with just texting, drinking, and avoiding conversations.”
    “Apparently,” I added dryly.
    “He had you pretty fired up last night, didn’t he?” Lizzie noticed.
    “It was the alcohol talking.” I dismissed the thought.
    “Yeah, thanks to Kosic.” Riley snickered.
    “We just had a couple bad hands.”
    “The rest of the night?” Lizzie asked skeptically.
    “It does seem a bit fishy now that I’m sober.”
    “And Hawkins didn’t like it, did he?” Riley mused.
    “Okay, it would be a lot easier to list the things Hawkins did like. Anyway, I’m not going to focus my trip on him, that’s your job Riley. Mine is to sightsee, which is coming up.” My attention drifted outside to a large, round building with a white domed top and a clock centered over the doorway.
    “Okay, sightseers, that is The Rotunda of UVA,” I said, pointing with my finger. “It was designed by Thomas Jefferson. He created it in the image of the Pantheon in Rome. That long stretch of land in front of it is called ‘The Lawn.’”
    “Oh god, you sound like a tour guide,” Lizzie groaned as she came up to lean her arms on either side of our seats.
    “She’s just practicing for her mom,” Riley commented.
    Not that it mattered, but I did want to do something other than go to concert after concert.
    “Over there, sightseers,” Lizzie announced in her “tour guide” voice, “Is UVA’s finest attribute.”
    Riley snickered as we approached a group of guys jogging down the side of the road.
    “Now, that’s what I’m interested in getting out and seeing more of.” Lizzie nodded and tapped Riley’s shoulder. “How about you?” They both pealed into a fit of laughter.
    “The Historic Downtown Mall will have to suffice,” I muttered to myself as we pulled into the parking lot behind Main Street in downtown Charlottesville. “I hope they have a book store.”
    “But you have a Sony Reader.” Riley picked it up.
    “I know, I just love the smell of an old book store and the feel of the crisp pages along my fingertips.”
    “Okay, okay.” Lizzie stopped me as we exited the van. “We got it.”
    We headed down an overly crowded sidewalk that opened up to what was probably once a street, but had been turned into an outdoor mall at least a century earlier. The walkway hummed with people going in and out of stores that were tightly packed side by side. The jingle of bells could be heard as the shoppers came and went out of the buildings. Up ahead was a bookstore, and I headed straight for it since I finished my last book three concerts ago. Riley and a reluctant Lizzie followed behind me.
    “How can you read when there are so many other things to do on this tour?” Lizzie asked.
    “Clearly,” I said dryly at the mention of things to do .
    A bell jingled announcing our presence when we walked through the door. The room was filled with floor to ceiling book shelves. Large, wooden tables filled the span of the room all the way to the back where a counter was stationed. A man in a bright yellow tie behind the counter greeted us with a warm smile.
    Examining the spines of the books, I realized that they kept the history, psychology and other non-fiction selections on the first floor. I walked the length of the room and swung around to my left where a wooden staircase curled to the second floor. Venturing up the steps, I found the fiction section. Lizzie hung closely behind me out of boredom, but Riley